Ideally, this significant, ongoing decline in crime should limit one of our two political party's ability to weaponize crime as an election factor by misleading voters and claiming that crime is rampant.
For example, before the '22 mid-terms, an analysis from Pew Research noted:
* "Political candidates around the United States have released thousands of ads focusing on violent crime this year, and most registered voters see the issue as very important in the Nov. 8 midterm elections."
* "Around six-in-ten registered voters (61%) say violent crime is very important when making their decision about who to vote for in this year’s congressional elections."
* "Republican voters are much more likely than Democratic voters to see violent crime as a key voting issue this year."
* 73% of (R)s saw "violent crime as a key voting issue this year" versus 49% of (D)s.
* However, Pew also reported that, "Annual government surveys from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show no recent increase in the U.S. violent crime rate.", and,
* "The FBI also estimates that there was no increase in the violent crime rate…."
Unfortunately, the public may be unaware of this on-going drop in crime since the MSM is far less likely to report a drop in crime than they were to emphasize the short-term increase in Homicide/Assault that occurred during the Covid societal disruption. At that time, headlines screamed that the, "…homicide rate in the United States increased nearly 35% from 2019 to 2020…". However, the subsequent post-Covid drop in Homicide/Assault got relatively little publicity.
In addition, shockingly but not surprisingly, on 5/3/25 the Marshall Project reported, "There’s a Lot to Learn About Crime. Trump’s Orders Are Making It Harder to Get Answers. The administration so far has cut funds for tracking bad cops, shootings and violent extremism, cancelled crime prevention grants, and more." The report addresses this administration's efforts to control the narrative by obscuring the data and/or shooting the messenger (see, firing the BLS commissioner).
The truth does not benefit the MSM. Fear is an economic driver for them. It is the same with political campaigns, regardless of party, because they both engage in similar tactics, whether in local, state, or national campaigns. So, the real question becomes, how do you change public perception. As a police leader, my goal was to create a more robust community outreach program, launch a local podcast, hire a social media manager, and share our own story. That was in 2015, not 2025.
If you are waiting for the MSM to change or political candidates, you'll be waiting forever. Why? Because the truth hurts their bottom line. Nobody tunes into the news to hear positive stories. That's just human nature at work.
Honestly, I'd be lying if I said it still doesn't frustrate me to watch how crime is reported, but after chasing my tail constantly and never getting ahead, I decided to flip the script.
There are still opportunities for mutual benefits, so good media relations are essential. While LE Leaders should avoid adversarial relationships with their local media, they need always to understand the bottom line: The media has its own agenda, always.
They used to publish a participation file along with the agencies but have stopped doing that. I asked for it and will try to publish it in some way if/when I get it.
I follow the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission and they provide data for non-fatal shootings and those are below 2019 for New Orleans. And the homocides would be significantly below 2019 but for the Bourbon Street terrorist attack.
My research has led me to the proximate cause not just being “Covid” but PPP and sibling programs with the first checks disbursed April 3, 2020. And when the dust settled upwards $250 billion of those payments were fraudulent. So thugs committed fraud to get PPP money and then put that money back into their criminal enterprises. So fentanyl deaths also began spiking to over 100k/year around that time. And I’ve even read that street guns had price inflation and I’ve read the New Orleans vehicle break-ins were about stealing guns in vehicles with thugs figuring out “the bigger the truck the more likely it has a gun in it”.
"The 2024 data adds confidence that 2025 will feature the lowest murder rate ever recorded. A decline of around 10 percent in 2025 would place this year even with 2014 as the lowest murder rate ever recorded."
This is all, of course, super great, and will hopefully go some way to countering the "crime is always getting worse" default mindset.
But lost in that narrative might be how much farther behind we still are compared to 1960 when it comes to the propensity to use violence and deadly force. If Americans still had 1960 levels of medical technology and access (more of us lived much farther from ERs) our homicide rate would be 2-3x higher(!) due to less people surviving assaults.
Alwaysa great take, Jeff!
Ideally, this significant, ongoing decline in crime should limit one of our two political party's ability to weaponize crime as an election factor by misleading voters and claiming that crime is rampant.
For example, before the '22 mid-terms, an analysis from Pew Research noted:
* "Political candidates around the United States have released thousands of ads focusing on violent crime this year, and most registered voters see the issue as very important in the Nov. 8 midterm elections."
* "Around six-in-ten registered voters (61%) say violent crime is very important when making their decision about who to vote for in this year’s congressional elections."
* "Republican voters are much more likely than Democratic voters to see violent crime as a key voting issue this year."
* 73% of (R)s saw "violent crime as a key voting issue this year" versus 49% of (D)s.
* However, Pew also reported that, "Annual government surveys from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show no recent increase in the U.S. violent crime rate.", and,
* "The FBI also estimates that there was no increase in the violent crime rate…."
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/10/31/violent-crime-is-a-key-midterm-voting-issue-but-what-does-the-data-say/
Unfortunately, the public may be unaware of this on-going drop in crime since the MSM is far less likely to report a drop in crime than they were to emphasize the short-term increase in Homicide/Assault that occurred during the Covid societal disruption. At that time, headlines screamed that the, "…homicide rate in the United States increased nearly 35% from 2019 to 2020…". However, the subsequent post-Covid drop in Homicide/Assault got relatively little publicity.
In addition, shockingly but not surprisingly, on 5/3/25 the Marshall Project reported, "There’s a Lot to Learn About Crime. Trump’s Orders Are Making It Harder to Get Answers. The administration so far has cut funds for tracking bad cops, shootings and violent extremism, cancelled crime prevention grants, and more." The report addresses this administration's efforts to control the narrative by obscuring the data and/or shooting the messenger (see, firing the BLS commissioner).
This is well worth a read:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/05/03/trump-order-bondi-crime-data-prevention
The truth does not benefit the MSM. Fear is an economic driver for them. It is the same with political campaigns, regardless of party, because they both engage in similar tactics, whether in local, state, or national campaigns. So, the real question becomes, how do you change public perception. As a police leader, my goal was to create a more robust community outreach program, launch a local podcast, hire a social media manager, and share our own story. That was in 2015, not 2025.
If you are waiting for the MSM to change or political candidates, you'll be waiting forever. Why? Because the truth hurts their bottom line. Nobody tunes into the news to hear positive stories. That's just human nature at work.
"Get the widow on the set, etc, etc…"?
#Truth.
Honestly, I'd be lying if I said it still doesn't frustrate me to watch how crime is reported, but after chasing my tail constantly and never getting ahead, I decided to flip the script.
There are still opportunities for mutual benefits, so good media relations are essential. While LE Leaders should avoid adversarial relationships with their local media, they need always to understand the bottom line: The media has its own agenda, always.
Great article Jeff! Do you have an updated list of cities that haven’t adopted NIBRS yet? I’m having trouble finding a recently updated source.
They used to publish a participation file along with the agencies but have stopped doing that. I asked for it and will try to publish it in some way if/when I get it.
I follow the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission and they provide data for non-fatal shootings and those are below 2019 for New Orleans. And the homocides would be significantly below 2019 but for the Bourbon Street terrorist attack.
My research has led me to the proximate cause not just being “Covid” but PPP and sibling programs with the first checks disbursed April 3, 2020. And when the dust settled upwards $250 billion of those payments were fraudulent. So thugs committed fraud to get PPP money and then put that money back into their criminal enterprises. So fentanyl deaths also began spiking to over 100k/year around that time. And I’ve even read that street guns had price inflation and I’ve read the New Orleans vehicle break-ins were about stealing guns in vehicles with thugs figuring out “the bigger the truck the more likely it has a gun in it”.
Jeff-Thank you, Thank you, Thank You, ... Now if we could just get the MSM to let everyone know about these fantastic trends!
Thanks for this, Jeff. Very helpful information and insight.
I will continue to share your Substack far and wide. It is fascinating to watch how this story is being covered nationally.
For people curious about the causes of the recent declining trend https://open.substack.com/pub/crimeforecast/p/explaining-the-crime-decline?r=4v7etj&utm_medium=ios
"The 2024 data adds confidence that 2025 will feature the lowest murder rate ever recorded. A decline of around 10 percent in 2025 would place this year even with 2014 as the lowest murder rate ever recorded."
This is all, of course, super great, and will hopefully go some way to countering the "crime is always getting worse" default mindset.
But lost in that narrative might be how much farther behind we still are compared to 1960 when it comes to the propensity to use violence and deadly force. If Americans still had 1960 levels of medical technology and access (more of us lived much farther from ERs) our homicide rate would be 2-3x higher(!) due to less people surviving assaults.
Can't wait for the navel gazers to hypothesize on why the steep drops.